“How in the world—— But never mind now,—after dinner you must come to me and tell me about everything, and we shall be together till you leave. I have a great deal to talk to you about—I’ll drive you down to the station.... Now let us go in.”
“Here you see my masters,” he said, with a smile, as we came to a halt in a corner at the upper end of the church. “They are all up there. Do you know any of them?”
“Only Signor Cosimo’s family.”
“I’ll tell you the names of some—they are quite worth your attention. They wouldn’t be bad sort of people if it were not for the intolerable airs they give themselves on the strength of their ignorance. All well known, though!—all honest folks,—and all of them very much admired, because the rest of the parish are greater asses than they. Do you see the priest who is celebrating? That is the Provost of Siepole. A profound theologian—a thriving dealer in oil—confessor to the nunnery—a great eater.... He doesn’t like me, but he puts up with me ever since I cured him of an indigestion which he brought on by eating salted cheese and beans.”
“He’s not young,” I observed.
“Over sixty. The one at his right is his chaplain, who is at daggers drawn with me, and gives it out all over the country that I am a lunatic, because I once refused to make him out a false certificate of illness. I think there is not much love lost between the two, for family reasons.... And yet they are never apart; the chaplain’s chief occupation is to water down his superior’s oaths. Every time the Provost takes a trick at cards he says ‘Giuraddio,’ and the chaplain qualifies it with ‘Bacco.’ So they go on, for the sake of saving appearances and their souls; but sometimes the Provost feels it as an insult to his dignity, and takes it ill, and then he snubs the chaplain, and in his wrath the oaths come dropping out like the beads off a broken rosary, while the chaplain goes on counteracting them with his ‘Bacco! bacco!’ quite unmoved, and ready to face martyrdom rather than yield. He is the best shot about here, and could beat the whole village at briscola. The poor people adore him, because he says mass in ten minutes, is easy at confession, and has no scruples about thrashing any man that tries to play tricks on him.
“The little thin man on this side is an unattached priest—a good fellow—miserably poor, and in wretched health. He contrives to worry along somehow and support an elder sister and two grand-children of hers, whom he teaches himself. He is master, father, and uncle to them, all in one; and ekes out his means by the help of four or five other pupils, whom he picks up wherever he can at a franc a month. No one knows how he does it, but he pays his way, and keeps an honoured name as a good citizen and blameless priest; and, above all, he is such a rara avis as not to call down the curse of heaven on his country.[[17]]... In the village, as you may easily understand, people either don’t trouble their heads about him, or else they despise him.
“That other is Sor Cosimo’s brother, whom you know.... I’ll tell you something about him too; but hush!... every one is kneeling down....”
The silence was followed by the usual shuffling of feet, tinkling of medals, and indispensable volley of previously suppressed coughs. The air was becoming more and more unendurably close. The doctor recommenced his remarks in an undertone.
“And Sor Cosimo’s brother ... he is nicknamed ‘Thickskull’, and yet...” Here he leaned over and whispered in my ear....